Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.

Career beginnings

Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his school band at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trumpeter Lee Katzman, former sideman with Stan Kenton, recommended that he begin taking trumpet lessons at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music (now the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler University) with Max Woodbury, principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In his teens, Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery, and worked with bassist Larry Ridley and saxophonist James Spaulding.

In 1958, at the age of 20, he moved to New York and began playing with some of the best jazz players of the era, including Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Eric Dolphy, J. J. Johnson, and Quincy Jones. In May 1961, Hubbard played on Olé Coltrane, John Coltrane's final session for Atlantic Records. Coltrane also hired Hubbard, Eric Dolphy and Art Davis, who all appeared on Olé, to record Africa/Brass, Coltrane's first album with Impulse!, which was begun just after Olé.

In August 1961, Hubbard recorded Ready for Freddie (Blue Note), which was also his first collaboration with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Hubbard became Shorter's bandmate when he replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers later in 1961.

Hubbard remained with Blakey until 1966, leaving to form the first of several small groups of his own, which featured, among others, his Blue note associate James Spaulding, pianist Kenny Barron and drummer Louis Hayes.

Throughout the '60s, Hubbard played as a sideman on some of the most important albums from that era, including Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch!, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, and Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. Hubbard was described as "the most brilliant trumpeter of a generation of musicians who stand with one foot in 'tonal' jazz and the other in the atonal camp". Though he never fully embraced the free jazz of the 1960s, he appeared on two of its landmark albums: Coleman's Free Jazz and Coltrane's Ascension, as well as on Sonny Rollins' "new thing" track, "East Broadway Run Down" (on the 1966 album of the same name), with Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison.

1970s

thumb|150px|right|Hubbard with DJ Harry Abraham of [[WHAM (AM)|WHAM, Rochester, c. 1978]]

Hubbard achieved his greatest popular success in the 1970s with a series of albums for Creed Taylor and his record label CTI Records, overshadowing Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, and George Benson. Although his early 1970s jazz albums Red Clay, First Light, Straight Life, and Sky Dive were particularly well received and considered among his best work, the albums he recorded later in the decade were attacked by critics for their commercialism. First Light won a 1972 Grammy Award and included pianists Herbie Hancock and Richard Wyands, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Airto Moreira. In 1994, Hubbard, collaborating with Chicago jazz vocalist/co-writer Catherine Whitney, had lyrics set to the music of First Light.

In 1977, Hubbard joined the all-star V.S.O.P. band, which also featured Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter. All of the band's members except Hubbard were members of the mid-1960s Miles Davis Quintet. His best records ranked with the finest in his field.

Death

On December 29, 2008, Hubbard died in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, from complications caused by a heart attack he suffered on November 26. Hubbard's body was cremated, with his ashes given to his family.

Legacy and honors

In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts accorded Hubbard its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award. After his death, Hubbard's estate requested that tax-deductible donations be made in his name to the Jazz Foundation.

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| Stanley Turrentine || Sugar || 1970 || CTI || 1970

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| Stanley Turrentine || More Than a Mood || 1992 || MusicMasters || 1992

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| McCoy Tyner || Together || 1978 || Milestone || 1979

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| McCoy Tyner || Quartets 4 X 4 — <small>on three tracks as part of one quartet</small> || 1980 || Milestone || 1980

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| Cedar Walton || Soundscapes || 1980 || Columbia || 1980

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| Randy Weston || Uhuru Afrika || 1960 || Roulette || 1961

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| Randy Weston || Blue Moses || 1972 || CTI || 1972

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| V.A. || One Night with Blue Note Preserved || 1985 || Blue Note || 1985

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Filmography

  • 1981 – Studiolive (Sony)
  • 1985 – One Night with Blue Note
  • 2004 – Live at the Village Vanguard (Immortal)
  • 2005 – All Blues (FS World Jazz)
  • 2009 – Freddie Hubbard: One of a Kind

References

  • Freddie Hubbard interview, In Black America – Jazz Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, April 1, 1984, at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
  • Howard Mandel, "Jazz Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard Dies", NPR Music, December 30, 2008.